Alan Ayckbourn

This biography of Britain's most popular playwright follows his early years as an actor, producer and struggling writer straight through to his West End comedy successes in the 1970s and 1980s and on to his "serious" plays of the 1990s. Following his unsettled childhood, his marriages and his working relationships with actors such as Felicity Kendall, Richard Briars, Penelope Keith and Michael Gambon, this biography looks at his private life while asking what has made him such a successful writer, director and producer. He is a rare breed of theatre man: someone who works in the North where he has developed the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough into a regional theatre kingdom but also a well known figure in London theatre and the international stage.